Another wet weekend

It's been raining just about all week and rained heavily last night so Jill PD and I decided not to free-range in our usual weekend space and checked out the school garden instead.  It's undergone some changes this year.

They've gone crazy for bee  / insect houses

and become a bit Gothic.

While Steve and Jill PD attended to The Village, I decided to have a go at making ricotta.  This is something I've long wanted to do because it is not available locally, and I remember how delicious it was when Ginny and I made it at her place just outside Deniliquin using the whey from our camembert making.  Best camembert and ricotta I've ever eaten.  Today I had to content myself with ricotta only, using the excess of milk from the miracle of Steve and I both remembering to buy it.

It's very easy.  I used this recipe .

Just-made ricotta, just-cooked silverbeet from the garden and lots of nutmeg =  delicious lunch.

Trying to get a jump on Spring by starting seeds in the kitchen.

It's like Harvest Festival around here.  Steve's banana muffins.  Mel and Rob's pumpkin.  My rhubarb and ginger chutney - bit heavy handed with the ginger.

looking out my back door

Glimpsed these wafty clouds as I was heading out for zumba this morning.  Sometimes I forget how lovely the surrounding hills are.  Red umbrella struggles on, yearning for a summer workout.

Wet weekend in Tribes

Heavy rain on the East Coast had been forecast all week, and it has come to pass.  The garden is a marsh at its driest points and all I have done is plant 2 pumpkin seeds in toilet roll tubes and brought them in to my new seed-starting area, aka the kitchen.  I have been driving to and from the Gatehouse so yesterday, to appease Jill PD, we went for a cliff top walk between downpours. 

I have to say it was magnificent.

So that's all the photos you're getting.  I'm enjoying a 'getting organised' weekend and feel productive.  Am doing a lot of thinking and planning, and a little bit of reading.  Big telly night tonight:  Shetland, then yippee yippee yippee Vera.  Hope we'll all be watching it together.

While my back was turned...

the wretched blogspot people have changed their processes so I've struggled a little with this post.  Hopefully I'll adapt...  but I can't get any text to go between the next 2 photos.  So, below, the workers leave their boots outside while we Zumba inside the Orford Golf Club Tuesday of last week.

Wednesday of last week we went on a Road Trip to the Hill Street deli at the uni in Sandy Bay.  We wandered around like true provincials, but it was lovely to be able to have so many delicacies to ogle and chose from.  The young staff are probably uni students and are smiling, helpful and knowledgeable.  I would love to see our local IGA staff be like that.  I learned, when buying fish and chips last week while the power was off in Tribes, that our local takeaway has stopped employing students after school because he's tried out 6-8 of them and they just look at their phones.  He said it's more beneficial for him to employ adults and pay adult wages.  Anyway, I digress.  After spending our pensions on delicacies, we decided to lunch in Bellerive.  The above photo is only of significance to the Floosie.  The now Fish Cafe used to be the tea rooms where Mrs History and I had our first bonding session after walking around Bellerive in wet and windy weather to share our knowledge of the area  and inspire the Bellerive Historical Society.  I can't remember what I ate at the Fish Caf but know I didn't get food poisoning as I did last time...

I think I've posted a photo of these Bellerive Boardwalk toilets before.  I love the stylized waves and origami boats.

Here are the real boats at the Bellerive Yacht Club, looking magnificent and reflecting considerable wealth.  As an aside, I drove (I was running late) to the Triabunna Boat Club last Sunday for a Volunteer Marine Rescue meeting.  I had in mind tending beached whales, injured seals, misguided penguins, etc and was surprised by all the high-powered 4WDs with towbars parked outside.  I was totally off point.  The meeting was about establishing an organisation similar to Coast Guard and, not having a boat, I slunk off after a while.

Now we're back in Bellerive  on The Boardwalk.  All very civilised and nice.  Hard to believe that my heart was here for so long.

Now we're back in Tribes at Mrs O'Henry's place after a bit of tai chi-ing in her lounge room, sharing some of our cheesy delights from Hill Street deli.  The jar in the foreground contains Gooseberry Cheese.  It's good but also contains Bramley Apples, and I would prefer more gooseberries.  The 2 gooseberry bushes in my garden hold promise.

An update on The Barracks:  the stone is now being cut for the front wall.  Apparently it will take about 6 quarryfuls to complete the job...

The fence in our more humble garden took a battering in a recent storm

but I'm pleased with the opportunities it presents.

More storm damage.

My first jonquils.

First iris of the season.

Close up of development of Edible French Garden.

It still has a way to go.

The self-sown broad bean is excelling.

Another view of the storm damaged paper-bark.  Also the heavily pruned lavender.  And some of the carpet that I'm still pulling up from garden beds.

The native wisteria, aka hardenbergia, continues its creep along the carport.

I started this post about a week ago.  In the meantime this has arrived for your watching pleasure.  It's lovely to see so many people you know, but we don't by and large stand around waiting for people to wave to.  I like the pub scene at the end - you get to see my mates Kim (whose got The Barracks) and Jen (who is building a lovely weatherboard house on Esplanade East, ie over the bridge).